Nobody is forced to use C for GUI programming, there is GTKmm for a reason. Or you can use Vala.
I just take dependencies into consideration, when I judge something calling itself "lightweight". Xfce isn't lightweight either, it's just slightly below average.

Of course, it's always the same story: People start with a goal ("lightweight desktop"), then they add features until the result surpasses the bloat of GNOME 2 or MATE. (While the "lightweight" crowd stays with WindowMaker, *box, fvwm, icem and so on.) Nevertheless I'm sure, LXQt will make a nice desktop on an average machine.

it works fine on x86-based pc with at least 512 Mb of RAM (assumed you want to run a browser inside it, for example), and I think it will work fine on the 256Mb raspberry pi too (but I still have to test it): I personally consider these low specs, also for a smartphone/tablet (but your mileage may vary).

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My definition of "lightweight" is something that doesn't get into the way of the actual applications I want to run. So the question is not, if a DE is able to barely run on a low-spec machine, but am I able to run anything demanding on top of it? People sometimes forget, that computers are actually used to get work done.

A good example for a quite large application is Emacs, which is about 100 MB on disk. When a machine being able to run Emacs perfectly fine isn't able to do so, if a DE runs beside it, then this DE cannot be considered lightweight.

sorry if I hasn't been clear, I was answering to your phrase
and I thought you were referring to the hardware

I can't help there: while I'm running LXQt since some time, I'm not an emacs guy
one more reason for which I suggest you to try LXQt

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(Back to the OP topic)
Thanks for the heads up Samac!
&
Thanks for your contributions Alien BOB .. can't wait to try it.

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I disagree. I just tried it (the build from Alien's site), and though I *am* a fan of KDE, this lxqt worked *very* nicely and was quite a bit snappier than KDE (I'm using a stock 14.1 setup btw, except for using the Nvidia driver from Nvidia and not the opensource one) on my system.

It needs a little polishing here and there (as does KDE, Gnome and *all* other DE's and window managers), but once that's done, I'm pretty sure I'll switch over to it and use it as my daily.

It's not particularly difficult to achieve. In fact, it's rather difficult to find a DE/WM that is NOT snappier than KDE

What happened to xfce is symptomatic of programmers in general; they just don't know when to leave well enough alone. 'Feature-creep', I believe, is what the condition of programs which succumb to this tendency is called.

As do I.

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You put it nicely and precisely, all over! I have tried a lot of environments over the past few years, but in the end I've come back to KDE, every time. Although it takes quite a bit of resources, I like its features. Most important: Thorough translation, that can be configured by an end-user independent of the system settings chosen by an administrator. I haven't tried Gnome for a long time, and I've never given MATE and Cinnamon a shot. But none of the WMs and DEs I know is on a par with KDE regarding internationalisation and localisation. Another Plus, IMHO, is not only, that KDE applications are integrated, at all, but the way how they play together, and how things just don't get in the user's way. Comfort and flexibility come at a price, of course, and that's resources, in this KDE.

I don't know FVWM-Crystal, but after reading about it, you might like FVWM-Nightshade, too. It uses FVWM and Qt, and proves, that Qt per se doesn't mean bloat. In fact, like all good frameworks it tries to bundle functionality typically used by many applications. Not a single application will use all of them, which may cause the image of bloat, but if you use typical applications, like an editor, a word processor, a spreadsheet and a web browser, and, maybe, a database, Qt includes functionality for all these purposes and liberates the developers from the error-prone process of having to develop these components on their own, by providing well-tested, proven and robust components for such typical tasks. Application developers can thus concentrate on the problem they actually want to solve, instead of re-inventing the wheel, over and over again.

Thinking of a typical general "production" environment for office work, instead of a highly specialized environment with very individual requirments, this is, in fact, very efficient, and not bloat. But if you don't write letters, and if you are doing computations no one else does, so that you have to write your tools, yourself, and if your tools don't need a GUI, then Qt (or other comparable frameworks) might just not be of use for you.


[off-topic] The following is a bit of nostalgia.

Regarding ROX and simple desktops: Well, as far as I know, it's possible to install RISC-OS on the Raspberry Pi. In case you have never heard about it, RISC-OS is the operating system and desktop originally developed and used by Acorn computers. To date it was the by far "snappiest" full-blown GUI environment I have ever used. The ROX filer and the ROX desktop try to save this very user-friendly environment over to Unix/Linux. So, if you have a Raspberry Pi, I guess you'll just have to get a RISC-OS ROM and will be able to experience the original, that inspired the ROX developers.

Seriously: I haven't seen a DE as responsive as RISC-OS on any device, up to now, which is disappointing, given that I've used it on machines with ARM 2 and ARM 3 CPUs. ARM processors now are several hundred times faster than those. So why is my smartphone so sluggish?

[/off-topic]

gargamel

Not too difficult, as FVWM, e17 (and e18), WM, xfce were failures at being any 'snappier' for me *and* just didn't have the ease of use that KDE has. This lxqt actually was snappier by a good margin *and* it worked (and looked) as well/good as KDE other than a minor flaw or two to be worked on IMO.

So far I believe from what I've read and my own experiences, DE's are a 'personal thing' for the most part and will each have its supporters and detractors, as proof happened quite quickly in this thread.

You're absolutely right

Gents, I am not forcing you to use lxqt! I don't care if you think it is crap. Ignore what you don't want to use.

I built the packages because I like the look and feel of Qt4 based applications more than GTK. Lxqt is light-weight, meaning it does not consume a lot of resources and is snappy on older hardware. It's just the basis of a Desktop Environment, it is nothing without applications. And it comes without a Window Manager, so everyone can throw his Window Manager of choice at it.

To everyone his own. There are enough alternatives to use. Remember why you are here? Slackware is all about choice and I made the palette a bit bigger, that's all. I will do all I can to help Pat keep the base OS very stable and conservative, while at the same time providing some challenging updates that will improve your Slackware experience - if you are up to it.

I am glad to see that there are minimalists who take a liking to Slackware. Not everyone needs a big boy like KDE, and it is important to have alternatives. If you can use xmonad or i3 comfortably on Slackware, then Slackware does exactly what it is meant to do.

Eric

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Sorry, I forgot to say it in my previous point, and I am pretty sure I speak for the vast majority here: Thanks a lot for making this available in almost no time after it has been released, and thanks for all your other good work, of course, Eric! I guess, noone here feels "forced" to use LXQt, but, of course, as it is new, people like to discuss the pros and cons, and for what usage scenarios it is a good option or not.

Same here! (Although Xfce with Faenza icons and Greybird theme, as "advertised" on the homepage, looks just damned fancy, too)

There's a selection of four WMs, out of which one can choose one, among the FVWM, KWin and Openbox, in the settings. I guess, it shouldn't be too hard to extend the list, but it already includes my favourites, so I didn't try.

And everyone in the Slackware community appreciates this, for sure!

Well said.

gargamel

Alien Bob, I too thank you for your continuous efforts to extend and make Slackware better. I'm not only an admirer, I'm a user of your extensions like Multilib and some of your slackbuilds.

I'm a minimalist, because as stated before, sometimes a good old horse is hard to part with and we like to lighten the load. I have an HP Laptop with 512Mb of RAM and 60G HD, a Broadcom wireless card, a NVIDIA GEForce4 Go 440 video and plenty of USB ports for my needs. I found that even XFCE had to be tweaked to run, so I started looking for smaller DE's and WMs. That's why I mention the sudo-DE's like FVWM-Crystal and Slacke17, not to take-away from LXQt just to suggest to other Newbies the breadth of choices available to them.
Some details the OP didn't mention that you might be able to answere are;
1) which user or operational purpose is the LXQt target audience?
2) What are the minimum RAM needed for it to run well? (KDE now states it minimally needs 1GB, GNOME 768KB and XFCE 512MB).
3) Is it meant to help users with minimal RAM or those who simply want an alternative to KDE that is still developed on Qt so that the applications integrate better?
4) If I use a mix of GTK and Qt applications (I have to have GNUCASH for my small business and believe Calligra still is not as robust a suite as Apache OpenOffice 4.1 in being able to work with Microsoft customers), will LXQt help those applications run better?
5) You mention that I have to supply the WM, how do I do that?
6) If I have to supply the WM, do I also need to supply the file manager, terminal, or other base apps too?
7) how do I install it so it doesn't mess with my DESKTOP profile or /home/USER directory for my other DE/WM's?
8) RTFM I imagine for a lot of these questions :-) Sorry.

I appreciate the breadth of choices concept. I applaud the effort. I just want to know more about LXQt and why it might be better to use it versus the other sudo-DE's. Your advice is always welcome and appreciated!
Remember I'm still a bit of a newbie to the whole programming toolkit pro's and con's related to the development, so I don't understand if there is an advantage or not to using GTK, Qt or E versus natural languages like C, and C++. OK now I've gone way off topic and I really don't mean to hijack this thread, but for a newbie it helps to understand decision making with more choices. In fact that may be the stunned look most newbies to Linux get when you have a thread that says "Lightweight Desktop alternative", because we aren't equipped to make the choice properly based on what hardware and software we have or intend to use. So many of us Newbies end up using the wrong DE/WM and application for the hardware (figuring out if NVIDIA kernel or NOUVEAU was the right choice caused me to loose three days only to find the NVIDIA driver for my card doesn't work with X greater than 1.12 arrg). I realize that many Slackware users are advanced users, but Pat still says if you want to learn Linux then use Slackware because the investment is worth it. I agree and reading the LQ's and Slackware resources takes time, but after 9 months I'm starting to understand it better. Hope this LXQt adventure turns out to be a great success for you and the other developers. I hope that MATE for Slackware also turns out better. And if anyone knows of a RISC-OS desktop I'd be willing to be a tester. Keep on Slacking.

I can do that in Xfce using MIME type settings. I can even do it in mc using it's own settings. If your DE doesn't allow you to set up auto starting of programs depending on the file type then it's time to ditch it for something better.